This invention relates generally to printed circuit boards and more specifically to the removal of printed circuit boards from connectors.
As it is known in the art, electronic systems often include devices and circuits which are mounted on printed circuit boards. These boards typically have connectors which can have as few as a couple and up to hundreds of pins in accordance with the complexity of the board. Often, several boards are disposed in a housing. The housing will typically include a backplane connector which corresponds to the connector on the board. One of the pair of connectors has a number of pins while the corresponding connector has holes into which the pins are inserted. As the number of pins in the connector increases, so does the insertion forces necessary to plug the board into the backplane connector located in the housing.
Correspondingly, therefore, a large amount of force is necessary to remove the printed circuit board from the backplane connector. In numerous instances, not only is a significant amount of force necessary, but due to the physical constraints of the enclosure in which the printed circuit board resides, little room is available to insert a hand or some other instrument to remove the printed circuit board.
Ejection methods have included lever-type fixtures which are mounted on the end of a circuit board to exert a force on the board to pry the board away from the backplane connector. These fixtures however, require space within the enclosure as well as occupy space on the printed circuit board thus limiting available space for logic devices and circuitry. In addition, these fixtures add cost to the assembly.